Welcome to Snow Time in the Berkshires

Frosty welcomes you to Brook Farm Inn

The  pristine snow that fell in Lenox a few days ago  resulted in the sighting of these winter friends at Brook Farm Inn.  The Berkshires are now ready for cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing.  The ski areas are making their own snow to add to nature’s bounty, and the scenery is great!

Pamela Lanier’s B&B website has posted the story of how we, Linda and Phil, came to live in Lenox, Massachusetts and to be the innkeepers of Brook Farm Inn.  Click here to see it!

http://www.lanierbb.com/innkeeper-story-Linda_and_Phil_Halpern-bb9066.html

Description

“For the ghost should never be allowed to forget that his only chance of survival is in the tale of those who have encountered him.”

Edith Wharton wrote those words many years ago, but they still seem particularly apt today. Whether using the latest technology or their old-fashioned senses, visitors to The Mount during this season’s inaugural Friday night ghost tours have reported a variety of eerie experiences from unexplained taps on the shoulders to the faint aroma of flowers and cigar smoke.

During Halloween week, the time of year when according to ancient folklore, communication between the spiritual and physical worlds is at its liveliest, The Mount will be hosting a series of events to tell tales, both ancient and new, and shiver the spines of all who care to venture forth.

Halloween Week Activities:

October 26-29 (Monday – Thursday)

3:30 p.m. Daily readings by members of The Mount’s staff of stories and poems by some of Wharton’s favorite ghost story writers including Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, M.R. James, and Edith Wharton herself.  These readings are included in the price of admission to The Mount and will start each afternoon at 3:30 p.m. in the Drawing Room.

October 30 (Friday)

8:30 p.m. A reading, in collaboration with the Berkshire Theatre Festival, who made this year’s “Wharton on Wednesdays” so successful, of Edith Wharton’s famous gothic tale, The Lady’s Maid’s Bell. The reading, by BTF favorites Ariel Bock and Jonathan Epstein, will be held in the Drawing Room at The Mount. Admission is $10 and reservations are required. Please call (413) 551 – 5100.

October 31 HALLOWEEN (Saturday)

6:30 p.m. A special Halloween ghost tour of the stables and grounds to be followed by a reading in The Mount’s Drawing Room of Edith Wharton’s spine-tingling tale Kerfol performed by Ariel Bock and Jonathan Epstein of the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Price is $30 per adult and $15 for 16 and under and includes both tour and reading.

Costumes are encouraged during this special week. The tour is not suitable for children under 8, or people with limited mobility. Reservations are required, please call (413) 551-5111 or see www.edithwharton.org for more information.

“If it sends a cold shiver down one’s spine, it has done its job and done it well.”

Find out if Edith Wharton and her beloved house can still make spines shiver.  Celebrate Halloween at The Mount.

Here in the Berkshires, we treasure the Trustees of Reservations.  As a conservationist organization, they provide beautifully maintained, scenic hiking trails, historic homes to visit, and lovely gardens.  Among our favorite places is Naumkeag in Stockbridge (a gorgeous Stanford White home with gardens), and also Ashintully Gardens in Tyringham.  This weekend we’ll have perfect weather for hiking some of the trails as well, so at Brook Farm Inn we’ll be glad to provide maps and directions.  All the sites are close to Lenox.

Who put the Mock in Democracy?  It’s the Capitol Steps, and they’re performing all summer here in Lenox.  We saw their performance a few days ago, and went home with our jaws hurting from laughing nonstop for 90 minutes.  The song and dance political satire troupe is very talented, and no one in the news is safe from theirparodies.  To quote from their program, when they hear of a scandal, they ask “1) Is it funny? and 2) What rhymes with it?”  Shows are nightly except Tuesday at 8 PM. For tickets, phone the box office at 413-881-1636.

At Brook Farm Inn, we’re always interested in literary links to the original Brook Farm, for which the inn was named.  Brook Farm was a utopian farm experiment — the original hippie commune, perhaps — that was founded by the Transcendentalists in the 1840’s.   Hawthorne, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and other famous intellectuals of the era were involved.  Nathaniel Hawthorne immortalized the farm in The Blithedale Romance, a fictionalized account .  (You’ll find a copy in each of our guest rooms.) The photo shows how the site looks today, in what is now West Roxbury.

This summer, The Mount is presenting a series of literary lectures, Mondays at 4 PM.  They all sound fascinating.  The one that connects most to Brook Farm is the lecture  about Eden’s Outcasts, a dual biography of Louisa May Alcott and her father, Bronson Alcott.  Although not involved with Brook Farm, they were part of the Transcendentalist community, and their lives were fascinating.   We recommend the book, and the lecture!

We went to see “April in Paris,” at the Mixed Company Theater in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and loved every minute.  This is a great comedy, and it’s being performed every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through May 24th.  At $15 a ticket, this performance  matches many Broadway plays that cost a great deal more.  At Brook Farm Inn in Lenox, we’re recommending it to all our guests.  Phone number for tickets is $413-528-2320.

Shakespeare & Co.,  in Lenox, right around the corner from Brook Farm Inn, has announced its program for the ‘09 season.  Wow! It will be the longest season ever — May 27 through March 14, 2010.  There are two theaters on the Shakespeare campus, plus the outdoor theater, and the program has something for everyone. Hamlet, Othello, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet.  Then there are contemporary plays:  Shirley Valentine, Golda’s Balcony and more.  We can’t wait to take our grandchildren to “Toad of Toad Hall” at the Outdoor Bankside Festival. Go to the website www.shakespeare.org for  full information and tickets.